The undersigned 207 farm, ranch, rural, faith, labor, environmental, farmworker, manufacturing and consumer organizations urge the leadership of the Senate Appropriations Committee to reject any effort to weaken, suspend or rescind mandatory Country of Origin Labeling (COOL) in the upcoming legislation to provide funding for the federal government for the remainder or part of Fiscal Year 2015.

American consumers are increasingly interested in understanding more about the origins of their food and the public overwhelmingly supports Country of Origin Labeling. The commonsense COOL labels that are in place today provide additional and more accurate information about where their food comes from. Farmers are proud of the food they put on American dinner tables and support the current COOL labels that allow consumers to make more informed food purchasing decisions.

Congress enacted COOL in the 2002 and 2008 Farm Bills in response to the broad-based support for these sensible labels. Since 2008, the World Trade Organization has been weighing a dispute over COOL that will most likely continue past the end of Fiscal Year 2015. The WTO has ruled that COOL labels are legitimate but continues to weigh the implementation of the labeling requirements. Importantly, in each successive deliberation, the WTO has been increasing receptive to the legitimacy of the Congressionally mandated labels.

Congress should not short circuit the WTO process; nor should it unconditionally surrender to the threats of tariff retaliation by our trading partners. We believe the United States has strong grounds to appeal the most recent WTO ruling. Last week, the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative officially announced it would appeal the latest ruling.

The Senate rejected efforts to weaken COOL in the 2014 Farm Bill and the FY 2015 Agricultural Appropriations measure. Indeed, the Farm Bill added venison to the list of products that receive the COOL label. We do not believe that Congress should make any legislative change to weaken, suspend or rescind COOL at this juncture; nor do we believe it is appropriate to make legislative changes to these popular labels outside of the full view of the American public as the Appropriations Committee leadership negotiates the upcoming spending legislation. We urge you to reject any effort to undermine these commonsense labels.